Hug a Storm Trooper
February 3rd, 2009 Jeff
For years, since my childhood, I’ve always viewed the Storm Troopers in the Star Wars mythos as evil. Not your typical kind of evil, but the “eating babies on youtube” kind of evil. Why wouldn’t you consider it as such? They work for the antagonist of the story and they’re constantly trying to kill the protagonist. It’s a logical leap within the confines of a tale that is ultimately about light vs dark and the transition from being cool to being a douche. (Although technically Vader was the cool one and Anakin was the douche) But as the universe of Star Wars has evolved, we can no longer look at the elements of the story through the simplistic lens of good or evil. We have to begin to examine the motives of the players involved and why someone would choose such a path.
Allegiance explores that as we follow a group of Storm Troopers through a wild chase across the galaxy. But more importantly it tells the backstory of these characters and probably plenty like them. Soldiers who signed up to defend the Empire for all of the right reasons. (A steady paycheck with good health care.) Believing in the propaganda offered up by Palpatine and being convinced that what they were doing was for the good of the galaxy. It’s not so far from our current reality here in the United States. I’m not comparing the Bush administration to the Order of the Sith mind you, but certain parallels can be drawn.
1) Palpatine and Bush both sent their respective empires to war under false pretense.
2) Both used propaganda to help fuel their need to keep the status quo
3) Both employed evil henchmen (Cheney) to get the job done
I’m sure the list could go on and on but that’s not really the point. The point is, it’s not that far fetched. But we don’t consider our armed services evil do we? I don’t feel like the military is my oppressor, in fact it’s quite the opposite. I know that even though they may not agree with the President, they swore an oath to the chain of command. They believe that the command structure has all the available information and are taking the best course of action. It’s the way all militaries have to function in order to be efficient and successful at their jobs.
The long and short of it is, Storm Troopers are just following orders. In their hearts they believe that they are upholding their oaths to the people of the empire. Granted that doesn’t take away from the pain they’ve caused, but lets be honest; Storm Troopers don’t really *hit* too many targets. One of the few times I can actually envision them making contact, the weapon was on stun. Even with that though the fact remains that Storm Troopers need a hug. They get a bum wrap when in reality they’re doing what many of our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, daughters and sons are doing.
So next time you watch the trilogy keep in mind that the man who Han just blasted in the eyeball, probably signed up to do some serious good. It just so happens that his leader turned out to be a major prick.
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